This invention relates to a detachable, removable and portable top pickup that can be incorporated into existing musical stringed instruments such as acoustic and electric guitars, violins, basses, and the like, herein collectively referred to simply as guitar. Musical stringed instrument and guitar, herein are used interchangeably to mean the same thing. The usage of pickups for musical instruments are known. A majority of these pickups convert acoustic energy from the vibrations of the strings into electric energy which is electromagnetically amplified. Present top pickups are permanently installed into the musical instruments or instead have holders or mountings that are permanently installed. These can not be easily removed at will from the guitar. Further, removal of the top pickup or its holder from the guitar leaves at least a hole or an opening bored on the main body of the guitar when the pickup holder or the tracks where a top pickup slides from is removed. Boring an opening or doing other physical structural modifications on the guitar to install a top pickup into an existing musical instrument is not attractive to most guitar owners especially owners of expensive guitars. They are not willing to structurally modify the guitar in order to install a pickup. Consequently, they buy several guitars with pickups, if needed. Pickups that can be detached are usually a part of an entire neck section of the guitar and it is the neck section that is detachable and not the pickup as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,929,362. The pickup here also is for a bottom and not for a top pickup. The pickup just goes along with the entire neck. Also, being a part of a neck section, this pickup is specially catered to a particular guitar and can not be attached to another guitar constructed or designed differently. U.S. Pat. No. 5,929,362 issued to the same inventor and applicant discloses a musical stringed instrument with different types of top and/or bottom pickups: a top pickup that can swing in and out of a zone of the string vibration; a top pickup in combination with a slidable bottom pickup; a permanent or slidable top pickup in combination with a permanent or slidable bottom pickup; and, a slidable top pickup. Although the description of the top pickup was described as removable in the above patent, it only means that the top pickup can be removed from the zone of the string vibration. When the pickup is removed, as mentioned above, they do not leave an intact guitar, but rather, a guitar with some structural changes due to the mounting of the pickups especially the top pickup because this is located on top of the strings at the front panel of the guitar with the transducers of the top pickup facing the strings.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a top pickup that can be repeatedly removed and reinstalled in any guitar without causing any structural modification or damage on the guitar.
It is also an object of this invention to provide a detachable and portable top pickup that can be installed in any guitar or guitars of varying designs.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a detachable and portable sliding top pickup on top of a string or a plurality of strings of a musical instruments.
It is also a further object of this invention to provide a detachable and portable top pickup that can swing into and out of a zone of the string vibration or tone detection.